


and the irons burned

by sterlingsparrow



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Canon Era, Javert Lives, M/M, a mishmash of different folklore & made up ideas, tw: allusions to suicide, tw: description of scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 14:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21017621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sterlingsparrow/pseuds/sterlingsparrow
Summary: It can be difficult to deal with the Fair Folk. It can also be difficult to deal with Jean Valjean.And unfortunately for Javert, Valjean might just be a fey.





	and the irons burned

Prisoner 24601’s eyes do not seem to have a set color. They are green as emeralds in the morning, the color of quartz at suppertime and then black as onyx at dusk. It distracts Javert more than it should. Some days, he finds he cannot keep his gaze from straying to 24601’s face.

It has been plaguing him for three months by the time he asks another guard about it. The man stares at him, then asks why the color of a convict’s eyes are of such importance to him.

Javert resolves that 24601’s eye color is of very little importance.

It is very strange, the way that M. Madeleine avoids iron. There is not a trace of it in his office. On the rare times that Javert has accompanied the man home, Madeleine opens his gate as quickly as he can and shuts it with his foot. One day Javert drops his walking cane, which is made of dark wood with an iron handle, and when Madeleine picks it up, he holds the handle at arms length, out towards Javert. Javert takes it with a raised eyebrow, though he says nothing.

Stranger still is the man’s ever-changing eyes, his inhuman strength.

_Jean Valjean_. The name forces its way into his head whenever he looks at M. Madeleine—because really, how could two men be so similar in so many unusual ways?

He writes the letter eventually. The reply comes as swiftly as is it can, and Javert reads it with widened eyes.

_M. Madeleine is not Jean Valjean._

_M. Madeleine_ is_ Jean Valjean_.

Javert fumes. His anger is such that he does not notice the way Valjean whimpers aloud when the iron cuffs are clapped upon his wrists.

When he was a child, Javert’s mother told him of the fae. She said that they are curious beings, who hate iron and cannot lie. They steal children sometimes, leaving one of their own in its place.

_They look almost human_, his mother had said, _but not quite._

Javert had been fascinated. As he rose into the world of the righteous, however, he grew smarter; the fae were little more than old wives’ tales, stories a convict spun to entertain her son. They can hardly be real. They are _not_ real.

But sometimes as he lies in bed, he thinks about Jean Valjean and his odd eyes, and Javert cannot help but wonder.

Jean Valjean died a few months ago. He died a convict, as he ought to have. There is no use wondering about his eyes and his aversion to iron anymore than there is use wondering if he belonged in prison.

In the mornings Javert rises and feels foolish with himself. He splashes water on his face, then dismisses any notions of fae from his mind.

Still. When night comes, he dreams of Jean Valjean’s odd, odd eyes.

It should _not_ be so easy for Valjean to persuade the insurgents to hand Javert over to him. Javert watches him suspiciously. Today when Valjean looks at him, his eyes are the brilliant blue of sapphires.

He ought to drown. He nearly does. Javert is teetering on the edge of consciousness, and then a pair of strong arms wrap around his middle and he freezes before passing out. He hopes not to wake.

He does, and he is on the bank of the Seine. Javert’s ribs feel as though they are on fire, and across from him is Jean Valjean, and tonight the man’s eyes glow white like pearls as he reaches out to catch Javert in his arms.

It is all so confusing.

Javert closes his eyes.

He cannot tell what is real and what is a dream. He is feverish, that much is for certain; aside from that, Javert knows nothing. He is in a bed—not his own. He cannot imagine why.

Sometimes Valjean holds him. That must be a dream, that _must_, because why on Earth would Valjean want to hold him? Besides, his ribs are broken.

(They do not hurt when Valjean touches him.)

He thinks he catches a glimpse of Valjean with wings one day. The next, it is a halo, and after that Javert believes he sees horns and a tail.

He sinks back into the pillows. Valjean is angel and devil and human and fey, and Javert doesn’t know what’s right anymore.

“I am a changeling.”

“A changeling,” Javert repeats, furrowing his brow. “What’s that?”

They are in Valjean’s bedroom. Javert’s fever has gone at last, and he can make sense of the world again. (Most of the world. He still can’t quite figure out justice.)

He knows now that Valjean is anything but human, and has known for a great deal longer than he cares to admit. He has only just asked. Valjean’s expression turned into something Javert cannot figure out, and then he had said he was a changeling.

“One of the things the fae leave when they steal human children,” Valjean explains. Javert frowns.

“You can lie. Fae cannot.”

The man shrugs. “I don’t suppose I am entirely fae. Perhaps… perhaps a bastard child between a fey and a human. Maybe that’s what all changelings are. Did you know Cosette is one?”

“A changeling or a fey bastard?”

Valjean snorts. “A changeling. I didn’t have the heart to tell her poor mother—I don’t think Fantine would have survived the shock. But when I found her it was very clear what she was: quartz-eyed and looking barely human, with burns all over her hands from an iron bucket they would make her carry. I suppose she is fully fae.” He smiles wistfully. “I have never known the girl to lie, and she can do some magic, though I don’t suppose she even realizes it.”

“Can you?” Javert asks. Then he adds, “Do magic?”

“No. I can make myself lucky sometimes, but other than that…” Valjean shrugs.

“I suppose you used all that luck up on me,” Javert grumbles.

Valjean doesn’t answer, but his mouth quirks in a smile. Javert scowls at him.

“You_ are_ very strong.”

“I am,” the man acknowledges. “But I think that has more to do with being human than anything else.”

_Like hell it does_, Javert thinks, but he does not voice the thought.

Being confined to a bed is exhausting. One would not think it is, but Javert has never been more tired in his life. Perhaps it is his ribs, or perhaps it is the dullness of seeing nothing but the same room, day after day. With little to occupy him, his mind wanders, and Javert fears he may go mad.

A few days after he learns Valjean is a changeling, he remembers seeing the man with wings. At first he had believed it to be the product of fever, but now—

Valjean comes to see him often. Sometimes Javert snaps at him, and he leaves as politely as he came. More often, though, Javert endures his presence and Valjean hands him a tray of food, or reads to him, or does whatever he has come to do.

The next time Valjean enters the room, Javert asks him if he has wings.

Valjean’s eyes widen, and he drops the book he’s carrying. The two of them ignore the _thump_ it makes as it hits the floor.

“I thought you hadn’t noticed,” he murmurs. “That you’d been asleep, or fevered.”

“I remember seeing them, but I cannot recall what they looked like.”

Valjean hesitates. It seems as though he is on the verge of offering something, but then he picks the book up from the floor and drags the chair over to Javert’s bedside.

“Would you like to read?” he asks quietly, and Javert shrugs.

“It’s not as though I have anything better to do.”

Valjean clears his throat, then opens the book to the page they left off on and begins to read aloud. He does not lean against the chair, and Javert wonders about wings.

“You are religious,” Javert says suddenly one day. “I don’t understand. If you are part fae, then why do you—?”

Valjean sets down the pitcher he’s been carrying. “I only learned I was such when I came to Toulon. God has been part of my life for as long as I’ve lived, you see. I cannot imagine giving it up.” He smiles a little. “Besides—the fae abandoned me, while God never has. It’s strange, but I find it easier to trust in Him than my own kind.”

“You only realized in Toulon,” Javert says slowly. “Why then?”

Valjean’s face falls. Immediately, Javert regrets asking, but he cannot undo it.

“The chains, they…” Valjean fidgets. “They hurt me in a way they didn’t hurt the other men. It was as though they burned me. After some time, another convict pulled me aside and told me what I was.”

Javert blinks. He has seen the scars of human men after they wore a convict’s chain; he cannot imagine the scars the irons have left on Valjean’s skin.

“May I…?”

He cannot finish the sentence. But Valjean seems to garner his meaning, and he moves across the table to stand beside Javert. Slowly, he pulls down his collar.

Round Valjean’s neck is a thick, white patch of scar tissue, like that of a burn. It is grotesque. Javert trembles.

“It’s not too bad,” Valjean says, folding his collar back into place. He sounds half-hearted.

“Can you—can you feel there?”

“Not anymore.”

Javert’s stomach churns. Valjean walks back to the pitcher, then picks it up and begins pouring them glasses of water. Javert is still reeling.

“I’m sorry,” he says at last.

It is perhaps the first time he has every said the words, and certainly the first time he’s ever said them to Valjean. Valjean glances up briefly.

“Thank you.”

Javert nods shakily. It is not enough, he knows. Nothing can make up for what Valjean has suffered.

He does not leave Valjean’s house.

It is difficult, to say the least. After a time Javert returns to work; there, he finds that everyone seems to have forgotten about his resignation. When he returns home (good Lord, he thinks of Valjean’s place as _home_ now) the girl Cosette can hardly hide her smile and Valjean is nowhere to be found.

Javert waits for him, steaming.

Valjean returns at nearly nine o’clock at night. Javert does not hesitate to tear into him, and from the way the man shrinks back, he has hardly expected it.

“That letter was _everything_,” Javert spits, pacing. “It was—it was everything I should have spoken up about, everything that was _wrong_! And no one remembers!”

“You said they would think you mad,” Valjean says quietly. “That you could lose your position.”

“I could!”

“And yet you would rather have them remember it?”

“I—”

Javert stops. _I would_, he realizes, with no small amount of discomfort. He would rather have the whole of the Paris police think he was mad than to remain silent. The current system is a disgrace; it is unjust. He has always prized justice above all else, has he not?

_You have always prized the law above all else_, a tiny voice whispers in his head. But he has always believed that the law was just, Javert reflects. He has only recently realized that it is not.

He groans, tearing at his hair. What has become of him?

The girl marries in February, to a ninny of a boy that is as human as they come. It is strangely unsettling to see the two of them together; Cosette glows like the moon, eyes glimmering like pearls and her hair shining like a polished chestnut. She looks unearthly. Beside her, Marius Pontmercy is practically a gamin.

At least the two of them love each other. Human or fae, they are almost sickeningly in love, and that is more than can be said for many couples Javert has seen. He supposes they will be happy together, and stay happy.

Jean Valjean is most decidedly unhappy.

The man’s face is downcast through nearly the entire evening, smiling only when Cosette looks in his direction. It tugs at Javert.

Valjean has worn his right arm in a sling to avoid signing the marriage certificate. His left hand, however, rests on the table, just beside his wine glass. Javert raises his own hand and covers Valjean’s hesitantly. The man blinks at him, eyes black as jet for the moment. They shine with tears.

“She’s happy,” Javert says quietly. “But if you grieve, she will as well.”

Valjean looks down. “I… Javert, I cannot lose her.”

“You shan’t.”

Valjean is dying. He is killing himself, albeit slowly; Javert has not seen him smile in weeks, and he does not eat unless Javert cajoles him, and he stays in bed most of the day. He weeps when he thinks Javert cannot hear.

His eyes are rarely anything but jet now.

It is the sort of thing that would break anyone’s heart. As for Javert, it is tearing him in two. If only Cosette were here, to remind Valjean that—

_Cosette_.

Javert is going to rip Pontmercy in two.

Everything has been sorted. Cosette now visits regularly, and Valjean visits the Pontmercy home on occasion. The tear between them has been repaired, and Marius Pontmercy and Valjean know that if they do anything to drive Cosette and her father apart again, they will earn Javert’s wrath.

It has been nearly a year since the barricade, and the Seine. Javert’s robs have healed completely; he works often. There is no reason for him to remain here.

He ought to leave. He cannot.

“Why do you stay?”

Javert looks up from his newspaper. “Hm?”

“Why do you stay here?” Valjean repeats. He is on his knees in the garden, tending the plants while Javert reads in the shade. The summer heat is oppressive, and he would only ruin the garden if he tried to tend it.

He sets his paper down. “I enjoy your company, I suppose.”

Valjean raises an eyebrow, smirking. “Truly?”

“Perhaps I want to know more about the fae,” Javert mutters. He flips his paper open again.

“I am not an expert on the subject.”

“You’re a fey,” Javert says pointedly.

“Half-fey. Changeling. All I know is what the convict from Toulon told me, and what I have witnessed in Cosette and myself.” Valjean raises an eyebrow. “Do you really want to know?”

Javert shrugs. Valjean rises from the garden anyway, groaning, and crosses the little yard to sit beside him.

“Put the paper down,” Valjean says gently, and Javert obeys. He obeys Valjean too often these days.

“Iron burns us, but I’m sure you know that much already. I…” Valjean falters, clearing his throat. “Rowan wood drives us away, apparently, though I’ve never had much trouble with it. Perhaps it’s because I’m a changeling. We cannot…”

Javert stops listening. In this light, Valjean looks more unearthly than he’s ever seen him: the man’s hair is the exact white of snow, and his eyes are the blue of aquamarines, and his skin is like copper. He looks beautiful.

Javert furrows his brow. Valjean looks _beautiful_? When did he start thinking of his friend in such a way?

“Javert? Javert, are you all right?”

He shakes himself. “Of course. Continue.”

He does not really listen at all.

Valjean is making it a habit to slip his hand in Javert’s whenever possible. _He must not realize the effect it has on me_, Javert reflects one day. Then he realizes, horrified, that Valjean may know _exactly_ what it does to him.

Javert begins resting his head on the man’s shoulder in retaliation. Valjean’s jeweled eyes grow wide and he sputters in his speech, and Javert smiles in satisfaction.

It is Javert who kisses first, on a hot July evening after they spent the day working in the garden and teasing each other like children. Valjean is not in the least bit surprised.

“Cosette is with child,” Valjean announces one evening as he walks through the door. His eyes are like rubies. “She is about three months along.”

The man is brimming with love, a grin spread across his entire face. He does not even try to hide it. Javert grins back.

“Another one just like you,” he says softly, and Valjean blushes and looks at his feet.

“I did not think I would ever live to have a grandchild. I hardly thought I’d ever have a _child. _I—”

Valjean breaks off, covering his face in his hands, and Javert chuckles.

Often he wakes with knots in his hair. They are a pain in the ass to get out, and Javert looks at Valjean darkly as he tugs the comb through his hair. Valjean glances away, flushing.

Javert begins braiding his hair before bed. Even so, he wakes with knotted hair on occasion.

“Valjean,” he says one morning. He does not add anything else.

Valjean looks at his hands. “I cannot help it. It is not as though I am weaving any magic into them, either; you don’t become unlucky when you comb them out. It is better than a true fey knotting your hair.”

Javert cannot believe it. “You are putting _fairy-locks_ in my hair?”

He is thinking about Valjean’s wings again.

Valjean has them, that much is certain. But the two of them have not spoken of the things since that night months ago, and Javert tried to push them from his mind as best as he could. He is thinking about them even so.

Valjean is currently asleep beside him, laying on his side. He never sleeps on his back. Javert has seen the man shirtless, so it cannot be that he hides his wings beneath layers of clothes, rather… they must be hidden magically, somehow.

“Javert?”

“Did I wake you?” Javert asks, eyes on the air over Valjean’s back. Valjean groans as he pushes himself into a sitting position.

“You did,” he admits. “Why are you awake? Nightmare?”

Javert shrugs.

“We ought to sleep,” Valjean says softly. “It’s the middle of the night, love.”

“Jean, I…”

Javert hesitates. “May I see your wings?”

Valjean’s face goes blank. In the moonlight, he looks truly like a fairy: white hair, opal eyes, gray skin. He looks like a statue.

“Do you truly wish to see?” he whispers, and Javert nods.

“Close your eyes, then.”

It seems rather counterintuitive to close his eyes if he wants to _see _something, but he does as he is bid. There is the rustling of fabric, a rush of breath, and then Valjean says he may look. Javert opens his eyes slowly.

On Valjean’s back lie a pair of gossamer wings, like a dragonfly’s. They are perhaps three feet long and one foot wide, transparent.

“Jean,” Javert breaths, reaching out. The wings are surprisingly warm beneath his touch, undeniably part of Valjean. Valjean’s breath hitches.

“I have never shown them to another,” Valjean whispers. “Not even Cosette.”

“I am honored.”

He truly is. And not only to be shown Valjean’s wings, gossamer and perfect as they are—he is honored to be Valjean’s friend, to be his lover, to share secrets with him. Javert cannot imagine what his former self would think of him now.

He leans forward and presses a kiss to the junction where wings meet flesh. Valjean blushes and turns round, enveloping Javert in his strong strong arms, and they kiss each other shyly.

They are sitting in the library. Snow is falling outside, early this year, and it matches Valjean’s hair exactly. It always has. Valjean has his hand in Javert’s hair, knotting it absentmindedly as he reads aloud.

Javert pulls the man’s hand away. “You are ridiculous.”

“Am I?” Valjean laughs. His gaze is violet right now, the color of amethysts. Javert feels his face heat.

“Of course you are,” he mutters, looking away.

Valjean knots his hand in his hair again. “I love you.”

“Ah,” Javert says faintly.

He chances a glance back at Valjean. The changeling is grinning, though his eyes have fallen to the book upon his lap, and he begins to read again.

Javert lays his head on his shoulder.


End file.
